Thursday, December 11, 2008

I finished this book within 24-hours. I almost finished it in one sitting. I was captivated by the interesting and fast paced nature of the plot. The storyline was simple enough, but believable enough to be scary. I am a "hard" science fiction junkie, and I liked how this novel had an element of "hardness" to it, but was not overly complicated with details and really focused on moving the plot forward and creating complicated situations for the compelling characters.

I found the characters to be likable, but obviously flawed. The female characters simply oozed sexuality at every encounter. With the background and preliminary story developed for each character in the opening chapters, it was easy to follow and believe in each move they made and their motivations were expected and not randomly generated.

This book met, and exceeded, my expectations for a first novel. It was short, easy to read, captivating, and unique (which is probably the most important). It was not only unique in the idea of the computer software virus, but unique in the direction that the story heads afterward. It's one thing to create a world shattering event, but it is another thing to take that story in a direction that will become more interesting, both of which Ronco excels in doing. Using the analogy of a post apocalyptic book, I would not want the apocalypse to be the most interesting part of a book. You want the characters reactions and the story of their survival to be the most compelling, which PEACEMAKER achieves in its own right. The "PeaceMaker" virus is just the tip of the iceberg. It is everything else that makes this book worth reading.

I look forward to the rest of this series (I think I read it will be a trilogy) and more to come from Dan Ronco. I'm glad I got in early in his writing career.

Highly recommended. This book was a breath of fresh air compared to the massive numbers of like-minded, similar stories that are churned out each week.

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Plants and Books

This blog will be mainly dedicated to book reviews, literature announcements, and book/author commentary. My favorite genres are science fiction and fantasy; however, I also read a wide variety of books including thrillers, baseball and sporting event histories, historical fiction, environmental dialogues, and spy/espionage books.

As a general guideline, I post all my reviews on this blog, at Amazon, and at GoodReads. Occasionally, if an author or publisher sends me a book at no cost and asks me to review the book I will not post the review on a sales website if I cannot write a positive review (or at least a review that recommends the book to others).

If you are an author or publisher and would like me to review a book please contact me by email.